Belfast's past, one street and one archive at a time.
Historical Belfast sets what once stood on North Street and Donegall Street against the shutters and dereliction found there now. Alongside those street histories are guest conversations from a Linen Hall Library mini-series on the campaign for civil rights in Northern Ireland.
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Historical Belfast reads Belfast at street level and keeps the city's archives close to hand. It has two strands, and they sound quite different. The first is the street episode. Titles such as 'Exploring North Street' and 'Exploring Donegall Street' name the method: take one thoroughfare and trace what has stood on it, what happened there and what has been lost. On North Street that means the Exchange and Assembly Rooms, once Belfast's most important building and now derelict. It also means Thomas McCabe, who is said to have walked from his shop to a public meeting and shamed investors out of forming a Belfast slave-ship trading company. The show does not leave that legend unchallenged, noting that a Belfast barrister and historian cast doubt on it in 1926. Donegall Street gets the same close reading, with room for the comedian Frank Carson's school, church and choir and for Edward Carson's vast 1911 demonstration at Craigavon House. The street's old shape, a bank at one end and a poorhouse at the other, is set against the dereliction there today. Both street episodes are frank about neglect, describing shutters, car parks and waste ground where the old town once stood. The second strand is conversation. A mini-series made in partnership with the Linen Hall Library belongs to its At the Crossroads project, which drew on the library's archives alongside a public events programme and an exhibition. Its guests include Dr Melissa Baird, Dr Anne Devlin, Dr Connal Parr and Dr David McCann. One conversation weighs the politics of the 1960s, from the Nationalist Party's boycott of Stormont to Terence O'Neill's modest changes and the slide toward August 1969. Another follows a student movement that claimed to have no leaders, then elected a faceless committee that formed around Kevin Boyle and Michael Farrell. A third follows a banned march in Derry, rerouted from Craigavon Bridge down Duke Street with MPs placed at the front. These discussions look back critically as well as recounting events: they weigh the gap between laws on paper and change in everyday life, and warn against movements that turn purist and shut people out. A separate conversation with the Belfast-based journalist and writer Stuart Bailie carries the title 'Terri Hooley - 75 Revolutions'. Between episodes, the host mentions an ongoing Belfast Telegraph series on the history of Belfast streets, historical walking tours including one at Belfast City Cemetery, and a back catalogue on Patreon. For a first listen, 'Exploring North Street' shows the street format clearly, while '1960s - A Decade of Change? with Dr David McCann' gives useful background for the civil rights conversations.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants to know what stood on a Belfast street before the shutters came down. It also suits someone who wants Northern Ireland's civil rights years discussed through marches, committees and Stormont politics.
What sets it apart: It pairs narrated street-by-street histories that openly criticise the city's neglect of its old buildings with guest conversations made in partnership with the Linen Hall Library, so one feed covers both old merchant Belfast and the civil rights campaign.
Described in one review as a 'Belfast Tardis', Historical Belfast is Belfast's one and only history podcast on the airwaves. Hosted by historian Jason Burke, it provides an accessible and entertaining insight into the fascinating history of Northern Ireland's capital city, once proclaimed as 'the Athens of the North'.
Jason Burke gives North Street's heroic tale an evidence check; you get the uncertainty too.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded account of how a banned Derry march became a confrontation.
Historical Belfast follows Northern Ireland's civil rights campaign into the tension around a banned Derry march, where a blocked route turned a planned demonstration into a volatile confrontation.
A measured account of a civil rights campaign finding structure, influence, and internal strain.
The episode follows Northern Ireland's civil rights campaign as it moves from concrete demands into the harder work of organization. Its account of the so-called faceless committee is especially sharp on the tension between avoiding individual leadership and needing public…
A clear account of how Stormont, reform and communal separation shaped Northern Ireland before 1969.
Historical Belfast traces the years before 1969 through the institutions that kept communal separation in everyday view. It follows the Nationalist Party's boycott of Stormont until 1965, the Unionist government's ease with that arrangement, and Terence O'Neill's efforts to…
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Historical Belfast's "Taking The Campaign To The Streets, with Dr Melissa Baird" follows NICRA's shift from lobbying to street marches, with Seamus Heaney's description of the 5 October 1968 Derry march as a "watershed" setting the frame.
Historical Belfast focuses on NICRA's launch in Belfast in November 1966 and January 1967, then traces the five objectives into arguments over one-man-one-vote and housing discrimination.
Historical Belfast’s episode on 1960s Northern Ireland features Dr David McCann explaining why the decade was not the peaceful utopia sometimes presented before 1969.
North Street, traced to circa 1619 and formerly called Goose Lane, became an 18th-century commercial hub before wartime destruction and prolonged neglect.
A 1972 car bomb on Donegal Street killed seven people and injured 150 after warnings identified the wrong location.
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